Making the pilgrimage

On Thursday, we made it to the capital of all things baseball.  That's right, we went to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame (and museum).  The town is adorable, and there are lots of cars from all over the country, many with "Cooperstown or Bust!" emblazoned all over them.  It's all very cute.

Basically, the only thing we did here was go to the Hall of Fame/Museum and walk around town a bit, so there's not a whole lot to tell.  It's nicely set up and there was plenty to see (it took us almost six hours to make the rounds), but apparently there are about 40,000 more objects in storage!  Here are some highlights...

Hmm, again with the photo volunteer who has centering issues.  Just imagine the sign says "museum" not "muse."

"Mixed media" introduction presentation

I'm not sure if you can tell where Dustin's allegiance lies...

Any guesses?

I read everything.  I'm very diligent that way.

I'm still having a hard time figuring out which team Dustin's most interested in...

Ok, we took literally hundreds of pictures, and to be fair, most of them don't actually feature the Cubs... but there were so many that did that I couldn't resist. :-)

The infamous Barry Bonds asterisk ball.

Ron Santo will be inducted in a few weeks.

The actual hall of fame!

Up next: Crossing the border to Canada for our final game

Wicked awesome times in Beantown

One of the benefits of road trips is that they offer these sorts of exchanges:

“Huh, that billboard says there’s a Pez factory coming up.”

“Hmm, well, let's go!"

And just like that, the Marciniaks found ourselves at the Pez factory and museum, “over 4,000 square feet dedicated to all things Pez!”  It was pretty epic.

Look at that excitement!

After our impromptu Pez stop, we arrived in Boston.  Naturally, one of the main attractions (for Dustin, anyway) was the Sam Adams brewery tour and accompanying free beer.  I have been to so many breweries that I think I am qualified to lead tours… I can tell you all about the hops and the brew kettles and whatnot (in spite of the fact that I don’t drink beer).  Dustin gets a bonus since he gets my beer samples.  Lucky guy.

Dustin is a happy man.  As he should be.

Now, for the main attraction, Fenway Park!  I was immediately struck by how small the stadium seemed, especially compared to the behemoth where the Yankees play.  It’s a pretty great ballpark.  Dustin awards it the rare A.  He hates the Red Sox, so that's saying something.

Apparently Dustin did not want to look at the Boston fans so he helpfully closed his eyes.

Here I am at our seats.  It was chilly!

I mean, you’ve got your practically on-the-field seats, your Green Monster, your manual scoreboard… but they’ve also modernized it with the videoboard (designed to look like the manual scoreboard, which is smart), and they had good food and beverage options.  Interestingly, this was the first park to advertise “healthy” options as such – fruit cups, pieces of whole fruit, hummus dip – it seems like in this day and age, more stadiums would pick this up.  I wonder how it sells… I got a fruit cup, and it was pretty good.  The food here was also more reasonably priced than some other stadiums.

Gametime!

Ortiz in action - one of his two doubles

 As for the game, the Boston fans were pretty solid (as Dustin put it, Boston fans IN Boston are far more tolerable than Boston fans outside of it).  There was a bit of beach-ball and wave nonsense going on in the bleachers, but most of the crowd was sporting their Red Sox gear and leading the cheer charge.  It took Boston until the 7^th inning to get any kind of offense going and things were looking dire, but Toronto’s bullpen stunk.  The 1-0 Toronto lead quickly devolved into a 5-1 Boston rally, leading to yet another home win for the Marciniak road trip record.

These teams should be paying us to attend their home games at this point.

Most of the rest of our time in Boston was spent following the Freedom Trail, which is a walking trail around Boston that leads to many historic sites, and visiting Harvard/Cambridge.  We definitely got plenty of walking in during this leg of the trip (ok, it’s been a lot of walking everywhere).  Good thing we have so much driving to do to get to Cooperstown and Toronto!

Boston Public Gardens - it's so pretty!

Harvard Yard - also pretty!

Bunker Hill Monument - Dustin climbed all 294 steps (naturally).  I was, for the first time, thankful for my knee injury which gave me a good reason NOT to accompany him!

USS Constitution - one of the last stops on the Freedom Trail.

 Next up: The Mecca of Baseball

Phanatic fun

Saturday began with a lovely brunch at Tom and Kate’s before we drove to Philadelphia.  We checked into our hotel and set off for the stadium.

Citizen’s Bank Park was very enjoyable.  Dustin awards it a B+/A-.  He says that the field itself was excellent with a great view of the city, he liked the Phanatic (I had to look up that spelling), the fans were decked out in Phillies gear, the food selection was ok, the beer selection was not very good.  The online ticketing process for this game was time-consuming and convoluted, so we ended up with upper-level seats.  They did heighten the view, at least.

Note the fine view of downtown Philadelphia.  This considerably raised my opinion of the field.  And our seats.

A bit of tension came from the fact that the game had a 4:00 start time, and we had 8:30 dinner reservation.  Most of the games we’ve seen have been unusually speedy, but we figured even if this one ran long, we’d be fine with that much of a gap.  I’m sure you can guess what’s coming: a marathon game that ultimately ran close to four hours (we were able to push back dinner, but it added a bit of drama to the proceedings for awhile).

Here's the Phanatic being generally Phanatic-like.

Here's the Phanatic attempting to force us to be "Louder!"  Argh.  The fans were already cheering.  It's the 9th inning.  Shut up, stupid noise-related signs.

In contrast to other recent games, this was not a well-pitched event, but more of an offensive blowout. Tampa Bay took an early lead, the Phillies rallied and took a 6-3 lead, Papelbon blew the save, and then Jim Thome came in to pinch-hit in the bottom of the 9th.  First pitch - walk off home run!  Exciting times.

The walk-off home run mob.

Saturday night concluded with our delayed dinner at Sbraga, where we were seated at the chef's counter and enjoyed watching the action in addition to eating the delicious food.  Then, Sunday brought a tour of the typical "Philadelphia" tourist attractions - Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Pat's King of Steaks, the Rocky statue... 

Please don't think less of us after viewing this picture.

 Up next: Boston, where Dustin insists on saying "chow-dah" as often as possible.

If you don't like the weather...

Sightseeing in 100-degree heat.  Sigh.  The intrepid travelers set off fairly early Thursday morning, hoping to avoid the worst of the heat as we traipsed from monument to memorial.  Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, MLK, Washington, WWII, Vietnam, Korean, we saw them all, on foot, in a continuous sort-of loop.  There’s a reason most people do this on an air-conditioned tour bus.

We need to start vetting the people who offer to take our picture to find out if they understand the concept of "center."

Memorials offer a photography challenge: some, like the Lincoln memorial, are such pure landmarks at this point that grinning like a loon for photos seems natural and appropriate.  But what does one do at the more somber affairs, like the Vietnam War memorial?  Clearly, standing next to a wall commemorating fallen soldiers is not the time for “Cheese!”  Mostly, we don't take many pictures by them.

The inside is closed right now. :-(

The newest memorial, Martin Luther King Jr.

Anyway, after our marathon memorial morning, we set off for some museums.  We briefly dropped in to the American History Museum for some cultural icons (the star-spangled banner, the ruby slippers…).  Dustin saw more than I did because the chairs in the nice air conditioning looked pretty inviting at this point. :-)  We then hit the National Gallery, which had more interesting artwork than either of us had realized.  We stayed for hours before heading off for dinner with our hosts, Tom and Kate.

Of course, we have to find a Van Gogh. (This is a Skye moment.)

Of course, we have to find a zoo. (This is a Dustin moment.)

Friday brought the National Zoo, which was also nicer than we realized it would be.  For the most part, everything in D.C. was free and exceeded our expectations.  Score.  After the zoo, we drove to Baltimore, where we hit sites both literary and sports-related before the Orioles game.

Edgar Allan Poe grave/monument (Skye moment)

Babe Ruth's birthplace (Dustin moment)

We got to Camden Yards a couple of hours early – it’s the 20^th anniversary of the ballpark, and with its storied place in stadium lore, we enjoyed having lots of time to explore and check out exhibits on the park.  We found things much as advertised - it's a nice merging of modern convenience and old-fashioned charm.  Dustin awards it an A- or maybe an A.  (He isn't specifying reasons, I think we've moved to holistic grading at this point.)

Steak, cheese, and fried egg sandwich (Skye moment)

Natty Boh beer (Dustin moment)

We spent much of Friday anxiously checking weather reports due to impending storms, and sure enough, the game was delayed due to area thunderstorms.  We have some kind of luck, though, because this was the one game where we had seats under an overhang, which served us well throughout the rain.  They showed a commemorative video of the first season at Camden Yards during the delay, so it wasn’t a total loss. 

It was a touch windy.  The grounds crew was seriously struggling here - at one point, they completely lost half the tarp!

Note the fortuitous overhang.

The game finally (thankfully) got underway after about an hour and was quite enjoyable – we got to see the Nationals again (we’d seen the Orioles play the Mets earlier in the week, too… it’s like catching up with old friends at this point…).  The fans were good - they all holler the Orioles' "O" during the anthem ("OOOO say does that star-spangled..."), which earned disapproving looks from the patriotic Nationals fans.  Heh.  This was another well-pitched affair, with a final score of 2-1, although the one Washington run came on an error.  This now makes for 11 out of 12 baseball road trip home victories, so we’re still pretty good luck for everyone except the Yankees.

Next: Philadelphia for our 5th game in 6 days!

George Washington is a good dancer...

Wednesday took us to Washington D.C., where we decided to beat the heat by checking out the Air & Space Museum.  We both have fond memories of this museum from our 8th grade D.C. trips, so we knew it was a must-see.  There was, indeed, a lot to see, but after a few hours of planes and spaceships, we were ready for gametime!

I'm hoping we can find some 8th grade pictures for comparison.

For this leg of the trip, we were fortunate to stay with a lovely couple we met in Egypt last year.  On our Nile Cruise, we were talking about this baseball road trip, and Tom and Kate (not the Cruises) extended an invitation to stay with them for the D.C. portion.  They are big Nationals fans who had tickets to the same game we were attending, so we all took the Metro down together.  Unfortunately, a Metro delay put us a bit behind our optimum arrival time, but we did make it in time to hear the starting lineups.

This is the entrance nearest the Metro station.

Strasburg!  We were excited.

More Strasburg.  Because we can.

Here's Dustin in our seats.  The couple next to us was also doing a stadium tour and celebrating their 51st anniversary.  They think we're doing our "bucket list" too early. :-)

Harper!  He's good, but he's no Trout. :-)

Racing Presidents - we were very amused by this.  They ended right in front of us.

George is back for some 7th inning stretch dancing.

Stop trying to make "Nattitude" happen.

The Nationals were facing the Rays, and they scored three runs right away in the first inning.  That was fortunate for them, seeing as how they only got three hits during the whole game.  The Rays chipped away with two runs of their own, but the Nationals held them off and won the game 3-2.  It was a well-pitched game on both sides, and if not for an error by the Rays, we might have been around for extra innings.

The Nationals fans couldn't hold a candle to the fans in New York.  The attendance was ok, but not great, and the people who were there were... quiet.  Eerily quiet.  The scoreboard and even some hired lackeys did their best to whip the fans into a frenzy, but the fans obstinately refused to participate.  There would be no cheering.  The scoreboard kept flashing commands like "Get Loud!" or informative reminders like "Two Strikes!" but it made little difference.  We know from our friends Tom and Kate that there ARE fans, but apparently they don't feel the need to make their presence felt.

It is possible that these fans would not have known the team had won were it not so helpfully displayed.

Overall, we enjoyed the game and the stadium.  Dustin awards the stadium a B+ - it was nicely designed, had good food, and had seats close to the field, but the lack of fan involvement and the relatively plain environs keep it from a higher grade.

Next up: Hoping the Orioles game doesn't get rained out...